He National Development Plan of Gustavo Petro’s government is almost ready. Its approval only lacks the debate of 38 articles today in the plenary session of the Chamber and the reconciliation with the text already approved in the Senate.
In these two days of intense debate, the congressmen stopped several last-minute proposals that came from the Government and they eliminated a series of articles that brought alerts of the final project.
The issues that fell both in the Chamber and in the Senate will no longer be included in the Government’s road map for the next four years. Instead, those who were removed on one side but are still alive on the other could still pass in conciliation.
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What are the articles that fell in the House and Senate?
In the absence of the final debate in the Chamber, there are several articles that fell on both sides and therefore would no longer be included in the 2022-2026 National Development Plan.
– ARTICLE 353:
Despite the efforts and defense of the Government, the article that created a new National Agency for Digital Security and Space Affairs it will not survive either in the Chamber or in the Senate.
The congressmen knocked down this article again, which had already been dropped at the beginning in the debate of the economic commissions and which has now been revived again in the second debate.
We eliminated article 353 of the PND that created the Digital Security Agency through extraordinary powers. It is needed but let it be through a broad debate with an independent bill.
— Ciro Alejandro Ramírez (@CIROARAMIREZ) May 3, 2023
What the Government wanted was to give President Gustavo Petro the extraordinary power for a term of 6 months to create this agency and be able to defend himself against cyberattacks, which have hit both private companies and public entities in recent months.
We must remember the case of several companies related to the health sector such as Sanitas, Salud Total and Famisanar.
EPS Sanitas was the victim of a hack.
«Cyberattacks in Colombia have been mainly in health and private, and to that extent we need an agency that has the entire structure to be able to be preventive and not reactive, which is what we are doing today,» the agency told this outlet. prominent ICT minister, Sandra Urrutia.
However, the congressmen saw in this article the opportunity for the Government to ‘pick’ people’s personal information.
– ARTICLE 364:
Another article that fell both in the Chamber and in the Senate was a new one that sought encourage the entire natural gas value chain to remain in the hands of a few agents.
All of this with the aim of ensuring the supply and reliability of the domestic natural gas public service.
«The companies that carry out activities of the home public service of natural gas will be able to develop in an integrated manner the activities of production, commercialization, commercialization of imported gas, transportation, distribution, commercialization,» said the deleted text.
Article sought to encourage the entire natural gas value chain to remain in the hands of a few agents.
– ARTICLE 329:
Nor did article 329 pass anywhere, which was intended to give the president extraordinary powers to create a national entity to, among other things, execute strategic environmental plans and projects of national interest related to the development of the forest economy and biodiversity.
#Attention we managed to eliminate article 329 of the #PND which gave broad extraordinary powers to the President for the institutional framework of the environment and sustainable development sector in forestry matters.
— Carolina Arbeláez (@kroarbelaez) May 4, 2023
In her defense, the Environment Minister, Susana Muhamad, He said that this article would be «the equivalent to Ecopetrol of environmentalism, to the hydrocarbons agency but in environmental terms.»
Susana Muhamad, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, defended the article in Congress.
– ARTICLE 218:
Article 218 that said that the administration of the The National System of Agricultural Credit would be in charge of a National Commission. This would be made up of the Minister of Agriculture, of the Treasury, the director of the National Planning Department, the president of the Rural Development Agency and three independent members.
What are the articles that were approved on one side and not on the other and, therefore, could continue?
THOSE WHO FELL IN THE SENATE:
In the Senate, it also eliminated article 8, which sought to implement the recommendations of the final report of the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth. However, in the Chamber they saved him.
«This is an advance to follow the paths of peace,» said representative Jennifer Pedraza.
Likewise, in the plenary session of the Senate, number 207 fell, which sought to increase electrical transfers from 1 to 6 percent that must be paid by companies that build non-conventional renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar.
This increase was for the projects that were located in areas with the highest average annual solar radiation (greater than 5 kWh/m2/day) and the highest average wind speed (greater than 4 m/s at 10m height).
«If we want to generate investment and future projects for the energy transition, raising taxes on these large-scale projects and which are essential for employment and energy security, we cannot find causality or coherence,» said Senator Ciro Ramírez.
This Wednesday the debate on the articles of the National Development Plan continues in the House of Representatives.
Cesar Melgarejo/El Tiempo
THOSE WHO FELL ON THE CAMERA:
On the side of the Chamber, so far they have also eliminated other articles such as the 130that said that the providers of telecommunications networks and services that are holders of permits for the use of the radioelectric spectrum identified for international mobile telecommunications (IMT) should share the radioelectric spectrum, without generating any economic consideration or additional remuneration, in the places that do not make use of this resource with other providers of networks and telecommunications services that provide access to retail residential fixed internet in rural, remote and difficult-to-access areas, and that at the time of the sharing request to the permit holder, will have less than 30,000 accesses nationwide.
Likewise, the representatives knocked down the 304. This article talks about implementing a new national sexual rights policy with gender, intersectional, disability, ethnic-territorial and life course approaches.
And they are also outside the Chamber 330that created a new Presidential Agency for International Cooperation of Colombia (APC), 331, which spoke of the International Cooperation Agency of Colombia (ACI) and 354, related to the law of extinction of domain.